Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/230

 2l8 THE METHODIST HYMN-BOOK ILLUSTRATED

Hymn 326. Stupendous love of God most high! CHARLES WESLEY (i).

Hymns on the Four Gospels (left in MS.) ; Works, x. 253. Matt. xi. 28. One verse omitted.

Hymn 327. Show pity, Lord ; O Lord, forgive.

ISAAC WATTS, D.D. (3).

Psalms of David, 1719- In three parts, with twenty-one verses, headed * A penitent pleading for pardon.

Wesley included Watts s Part III. in his Charlestown Collection, 1737, but he omitted the fine verse, A broken heart, my God, my King.

How this selection ranges over the three parts of Watts s hymn will be seen from this list of the way the verses are selected. They are, Part I. I ; II. 2 ; I. 3 ; III. 4 ; III. 5 ; III. 6 ; III. 7.

Hymn 328. Out of the depth of self-despair.

CHARLES WESLEY (i).

Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1740 ; Works, \.z^. Psalm 130. Verses 2 and 5 are omitted. Charles Wesley wrote, Depths of self-despair.

It was this psalm from which the anthem was taken on May 24, 1738, when some one asked John Wesley to go to the afternoon service at St. Paul s Cathedral on the day of his conversion : Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord : Lord, hear my voice. The psalm, says Mr. Prothero, was one of the influences that attuned his heart to receive that assurance of his salvation by faith, which the evening of the same day brought to him in the room at Aldersgate Street. On the foundation of that sure confidence, his intense energy, organizing genius, and administrative capacity built up, for the most part from neglected materials, the mighty movement that still bears both his name and the impress of his structural mind. For half a century, as he rode up and down the country, his voice sounded louder and louder, till it penetrated every corner of the kingdom, rousing once more the sense of the need of personal religion, and stirring anew the numbed perception of unseen spiritual realities. The Psalms in Human Life, p. 304.

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